Well I lost my name:(

I would like to tell you all that I have written 5,000 words of The Children’s Tale and I would if I could!  The next week or two I fear I will be setting up a new website.  through no fault but my own neglect I have lost my old one.  I have backups of all the posts, aren’t I good girl:) however I began the website in 2009.  do I want to put them all up on the new site?  Am still wondering.

Looking through the older posts I see some of them would still be relevent today. so with bringing up to date I may well re-cycle a few. When I have established my new site I will have to begin the slow business of uplifting them, hopefully in the same order.

I was disappointed  with the loss at first however, thinking on it, saw an oppotunity to have a change – after a change is as good as a rest isn’t it?  it is too easy to get stuck in a comfortable rut.  Quite looking forward to tinkering again:) I will have to apply some speed as I am hoping the weather has finally changed for the better so the garden can be fixed.  The garden is throwing tantrums daily at my neglect, telling easterly winds and biting cold is no longer a good excuse to stay indoors!

Am going to spend some time looking at designs tomorrow – see if I can find one I like.

So this last week  despite having cold and cough

1) WRITING: I managed a short story for the writing group I belong to, which I am happy with. Drafted another which I think has potential.

2) EDITING: Two chapters of The Children’s Tale

3) READING: Two books for local reading groups plus one for myself. Have now read 36 books this year.

4) MYSELF: well a lot of time asleep with cough. Have done no painting(holiday from the group, however did wake up with a strange picture in mind which I have sketched out – if it works I think it will be quite fun to paint:)  Have joined a local walk for heath group and my sister and I will be walking with them tomorrow

Still keeping my fingers crossed I will get an appointment for my heart test soon will be phoning them tomorrow to see where I am in the queue

All the best for next week to every one:)

I think I am back!

Off and on in the past, I have posted on the trials and tribulations of the creation of The Children’s Tale. This most difficult piece of fiction has been troublesome from the beginning, when an unruly bunch of children hijacked the whole. I have learnt a great deal during this four year process!

1) Be very careful how much you indulge the rebel characters. They should not be allowed to create mischief beyond their years:)

2) Work out very quickly how the story is to be written. Before the children took over I had begun to relate the Grandparents Tale in the format – of previous works in the series, letter and diaries – for some unexplained reason the children dictated a straight forward narrative – a mistake. By the time the mistake has been identified, the editing , the task of changing the POV throughout thousands of words is onerous in the extreme.

3) Try to avoid endeavouring to create new lives and worlds when seriously ill. Although the act of writing and reading did help keep me sane as the doctors worked on restoring some kind of life to me, (heart failure leaves one gasping to breathe and having to sleep for hours of every day. Getting doses of drugs right requires time.) it was no way to write anything one cared about. As health goes up and down, as the brain clouds and clears, the style of writing changes, the voice wavers and more rubbish than is necessary is written.

4)If one is writing a series, as a pantser, by the time the fourth book comes along one should have become more of plotter or at the very least have lists of previous characters (with correct spelling) previous incidents and secrets.

5) If one is catering into the last decades of life (I’m being optimistic here!:) with attendant health problems, one really must come to terms with the fact one is no longer 27 years old or even 47. Goals will become desires, deadlines should become flexible, compromise and acceptance, boring though they can be, and certainly this person thinks they are, become the way to continue.

6) However, what I have also learnt now, as the end is slowly revealing itself (I talk of The Children’s Tale:) is listen always to your inner imaginative imps and opportunistic devils; if one cares for the creation, one wins through eventually.

 

I have taken on board my own advice! Changed my deadlines to no deadline, dropped my goals and kept my desires, The Children’s Tale will be finished one day soon, the first part has been edited now and so to the next three. If I wake on a bad day I no longer fret, I occupy myself with something else. My imagination is still working, conversations can still be working themselves out in the background.

 

I thought I had rejoined  ROW80 again last round but never made it, trying again this one    but I no longer feel the urge to check in every week. If I have a week of no writing it doesn’t worry me (well not much:)
If I don’t manage all my blogs every week, it is not the end of the world.
If these don’t happen I still have the books, the garden and friends.

 

GOALS for this year

Finish Children’s Tale.

Keep my blogs running.

Reading – never has really gone away:)

Continue with my walking regime (don’t get excited it is only 30 mins at a slow pace:)

Keep my fingers crossed for hospital test results

Garden, paint and have fun:)

Fool! said my muse to me: Writer’s Quotes

Having been missing for many months I discovered Writer’s Quote Wednesday had closed its doors.  I was sad, I had enjoyed the quotes, and reflecting on how they had fitted into my life as a child and still do.

Words which inform our lives, are worth treasuring in some way.  I am continuing my own, maybe not every week:) I know my limitations at last.  bearing in mind the mess and muddle of my writing life at the moment I recollected this quote:

‘Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite: Fool! said my muse to me, ‘look in thy heart and write’

Philip Sydney 1554 – 1586

I went looking for this quote having in mind  its relevance for my purpose, the difficulty was, I had read it so many years ago; I knew it was from an old writer, a classical author,but had forgotten how old.

It’s somewhat comforting to see how the act of writing has always had the same problems, we are not alone it appears.

 I mean 1586, that is over 400 years ago, poor Sydney was struggling with writers block back then.

How often have we struggled so; we may not use a pen these days, at least not the kind Sydney would have used, but errant pen or keyboard notwithstanding, our muse sometimes has to hammer on the door of our blocked minds and hearts. We agonize on the perfect finish before we have even started.

We allow fears, anxieties and doubts to riddle themselves into our beings. Our self critic begins declaiming in loud ringing tones, joined by grammar police and, in perfect harmony down in the tenors, procrastination joins in with  mellow tones.

We need to relax, sit back, put one’s feet up, sip a comforting drink. Let music and sunlight flit across our senses and allow that tricky muse in. We have to pick up that pen and write. Nonsense sometimes, unedited probably, badly spelt often, rambling maybe. The words roam across the page and the crack in that block grows wider and muse can pour in at last. We know from his writing that sir Philip Sydney allowed his in.